Giroud underwent ankle surgery on Wednesday afternoon and could be sidelined until the new year after picking up an injury at Everton last weekend.

But it was summer-recruit Sanchez who scored the only goal of a tense Champions League play-off as Wenger sealed a 17th consecutive season in the group stages of the competition despite having Mathieu Debuchy sent off in the second half.

The Chile international scored his first Arsenal goal on the stroke of half-time and Wenger was delighted with his overall performance.

“I bought him to play as a striker, not to only play on the flanks,” the Frenchman said of Sanchez. “He had a good game, not only on the technical side but on the fighting side.

“He was mobile and dangerous and showed he has great fighting spirit – qualities which will be important in the Premier League.”

As well as Sanchez, Wenger also has Yaya Sanago, Joel Campbell and Lukas Podolski at his disposal, while Theo Walcott is another option in attack, although he is also currently injured.

Wenger denied any interest in Nikola Zigic or Manchester United’s Danny Welbeck and insisted he would not panic buy following the setback with Giroud.

“You will ask me straight away who we will buy. I give you the answer – at the moment, no-one,” he said.

“If you want to make everyone happy you buy all of these players but what is important is the performance on the football pitch. If you look at the players we had on the bench and those out injured, we have players. You cannot buy every time a player is injured.

“We are open for any position as long as we feel the player can strengthen the squad. Buy to buy? I don’t see the purpose of that.”

Arsenal will now go into Thursday’s draw as a top seed and Wenger was pleased with how his players dealt with a tricky second leg against a spirited Besiktas side.

“Overall we produced a performance we wanted,” he said. “We were on the level requested against a good team but we couldn’t finish the game off.

“It was nervous and very difficult in the final 10 minutes when we were down to 10 men.

“I wanted to qualify and we did it. You must give credit to Besiktas; they are a closed unit, well-organised, physically strong and technically very good.

“We kept (Demba) Ba quiet, he had one chance with a header at the ened that would have killed us.”

“Where to go for a drink near Great Portland Street?” was previously met with blank expressions and shrugs for those local to the area, not anymore, thanks to the opening of The Refinery at Regent’s Place, the eighth bar and restaurant from hugely-successful group Drake & Morgan.